Head coach Leticia Pessoa decided to split up former world champions and
Olympic silver medallists Alison Cerutti and Emanuel Rego for the rest of the
2013 season, as well as the Berlin champions Vitor Felipe and Evandro
Goncalves.

The 27-year old Alison will play the final three Grand Slams and three Opens
with Vitor Felipe (22), while 40-year old Emanuel continues with tall Evandro
(23), the national federation CBV announced.

Gold in Berlin

Pessoa made this decision at the end of July just a few weeks before Vitor
Felipe and Evandro won the Grand Slam in Berlin.

The head coach stresses it is an experiment and she has no intention to break
up the teams permanently.

“Since Alison/Emanuel and Evandro/Vitor Felipe have no chance of winning the
World Tour anymore at this point, I decided to give the young players the
chance to gain more experience and motivation. When the World Tour finishes,
the teams return to normal again.”

Vitor Felipe and Evandro are the less experienced team and only partnered up
this year. But in Berlin they surprised friends and foes coming all the way
from qualifications to the final, to claim their first ever World Tour medal.

Olympic silver

Veteran Emanuel, triple world champion and owner of Olympic bronze, silver and
gold, has been playing with Alison since 2010. They have proven to be a very
successful pair with eight wins, eight silvers and six bronzes, including
Olympic silver in London last year and the World Championship gold in Rome in
2011.

This year though, hampered by Alison’s hand injury at the beginning of the
season, they only collected one medal, winning the World Cup final in Campinas
at the beginning of June.

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